FAITH IN THE RESURRECTION.
November 2, 2022.
The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls).
The following are a selection of the readings that may be chosen for this day. May other readings can be found in the Rite of Funerals.
“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees
the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the
last day.” Jn 6:40
A Swahili proverb says: “A dead person is not asked for a
shroud.” And an Amerindian proverb adds: “Life is not separate from death. It
only looks that way.”
The Resurrection of Christ is at the center of all the
Church's celebrations. The Holy Eucharist itself is the memorial of that
Resurrection. Every time that we gather as a community, we recall and relive
this mystery that gives meaning to our lives and to all our being as
Christians. As the Apostle Paul can exclaim, “If Christ has not risen vain is
our faith.” 1 Cor 15:17 As if to say, the Christian life takes its origin and
gets its meaning in that mystery. Before the Lord's Resurrection, there were no
Christians. There was just a group of disciples and faithful followers of
Jesus. The community of believers in Christ will be born only after the
Resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is through faith in the
mystery of the Resurrection that people will gather and recall all the
mysteries regarding the Lord Jesus and so nourish faith in their own
resurrection after death. The Resurrection of Christ opens a gate for our
future resurrection. For, just as Christ our head and brother has risen from
the dead, so will we rise after our death.
We are celebrating today the Commemoration of the Faithful
Departed, and all the readings orient our reflections and attention on the
reality of life, death, and resurrection after death. Our souls are not created
to disappear in death. Death is not the finality of our life. A greater reality
awaits us after death, the resurrection. That is actually what we are
celebrating in commemorating the dead. It is all about the triumph of life over
death.
Why do we, Catholic Christians, pray for the dead? Why do we
celebrate the funeral masses and make requiem for our beloved departed? The
answer is here, OUR FAITH IN THE RESURRECTION. "All who die in God's grace
and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their
eternal salvation; but after death, they undergo purification, so as to achieve
the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.
The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final
purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of
the damned. The Church formulated her doctrine of faith in Purgatory especially
at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by
reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire: As for
certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there
is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come.
From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this
age, but certain others in the age to come.” CCC 1030-1031
The prayer for our beloved departed is an act of love for
them, a love that does not vanish with death, and also and mostly an act of
faith, firm faith in the Resurrection. This celebration of today, added with
that of yesterday is the expression of what we profess in the Creed when we
speak of Communion of the Saint, forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the
body, and life everlasting.
The readings come to strengthen our faith in the
Resurrection and our need to pray for the dead. While today we remember in a
quite special way our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep in death
ahead of us, the word of God exhorts us to think of death with hope, as a light
that guides us through this life so that we might decide and do what is right
for the second life. Death actually is a
challenge for the living to embody the Beatitudes. If there was no death no one
could think of Heaven and Hell. If there was no death, there will not be a
future, nor a past. Life will only be a continual and unending present. Death is, therefore, a great reminder that,
if there is a today, it is because there has been a yesterday, and so, there
will be a tomorrow. Life being spent in these three stages of time, we need
continual consciousness and awareness.
In one of the optional first readings, the Old Man Job
proclaims his faith and the faith of the children of Israel in the
resurrection. This gives rise to our own faith in the Resurrection. The
Psalmist responds to that faith with the image of the banquet of life and joy
that the Lord prepares for his friends. It will be the feast of the new life
that awaits us after this earth. In the second reading, we are given to
meditate on the figure of Christ who through his own death on the Cross has
saved us and is risen to tell us that the resurrection is possible, even though
that needs to pass through the end of earthly life. In Christ, we are restored
to life and reconciled to God the Father. In the Gospel, the Lord himself shows
us the way to resurrect unto the newness of life. It is also a way in which we
should live today.
The resurrection for sure is for tomorrow. But that tomorrow
won't be possible without a today lived in righteousness and faithfulness to
God. Our beloved departed have surely tried to live their today the best as
they could to please and obey God's will. But due to human imperfections, there
is still a need for purification. They are now, in our faith, we believe, in a
stage of purification. Our prayers, therefore, are like a booster, a great help
to push their purification. The Purgatory is not a stage of Christian or
Catholic imagination. It is proof that for a sinner to enter God's grace, he
needs cleansing. And God in his mercy makes possible that cleansing, even after
our death. For, he wants to save us all.
Why do we Catholics pray for the dead? Let's answer with the
Psalmist saying: “The dead do not praise the Lord, not all those go down into
silence. It is we who bless the Lord, both now and forever.” Ps 115:17-18. Our beloved
brothers and sisters who have died can no longer pray to God for his mercy. And
if they have died in a stage of sin, they cannot implore his purification for
themselves. Will God have to send them all to Hell? Our prayers are
supplications and intercessions that the mercy of God be granted to them and
that his perpetual
light shines upon them. We are not adoring the death nor
reviving their funeral masses. We are recalling in mind our love for them (that
is commemoration) and imploring for God's mercy on their souls because we love
them and want them saved.
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